The Mantis

The door was ajar and when I entered, with Flavio just two steps behind me, I heard an unnatural silence. My heart was pumping fast and faster. While I was in the kitchen, Flavio called me, as if he wanted to show me something. I just walked and while going there I opened the bedroom door to see if everything was in order. I never thought that Flavio had found Simona, dead, in the bath tub. Simona had taken her own life. The second person in a few months that had suicide and I was involved into both. I ran to her and tried to reanimate her but she had slashed her wrists... I hugged her and cried. I loved her, I love her, I still do... I would not have cared about her gaiety, I would have loved her regardless exactly as I was still a friend of Flavio. Actually, that is changed and not because I had sex with him but because he decided I was not his friend anymore and, I had never been. That die, that Christmas, will be unforgettable. I lost two people I loved. I felt so lonely and so impotent. Me, the tough guy, all of a sudden I was exposed to my weaknesses and had no way to show a different face. I was what I was, a better person but sadder and alone. Completely isolated by everyone.

One hand, out of the tub was pointing at Flavio's diary. She really loved Flavio and she noted something: "The only man I loved is now gone. What should I do here, by myself, now that he is gone, killed by a man that I could never love, a man that was too similar to those who have taken my innocence and youth away from me. My only satisfaction is that he will pay for what he has done to Sonya and to Flavio: jailed!" I was terrified by those words. I never thought that she could hate me so much, but I still loved her and a strong sense of piety took the place of love. I realised that amongst the three, I was the best person. Flavio, the sweet guy, hated me and Simona. Simona, the nice and full of life girl was resenting me just for being like someone who raped her when she was younger, at the point of pushing me to kill her love and rot in jail...

Flavio was standing behind me while I was reading his diary, actually the last words added by Simona, as if nothing had happened. He just said one thing: "I could have written the last sentence... "Vendetta, sweet and only satisfaction in this world, now it's mine". It's the same writing of the flowers of Sonya's tomb. I thought it was you sending them but I must have overestimated you. I forgot you had no heart and feelings for anyone".

I could hear a strong note of hate from his words. I am sure that deep inside he knew that he was the worst of the three, the one that really hated both of us, he was the Mantis.